Author's Note: Recognizable dialogue come from Journey's End. I'll do final edits and put together a banner later.

THREE

'You shouldn't have done that.'

Donna's voice is reproachful as she follows the Doctor into the TARDIS, shutting the door on Bad Wolf Bay and everything it represents.

'Yes, I should,' he replies shortly, striding to the console. He reaches for a lever to prepare them for take-off. Maybe if he pretends well enough, he can ignore the fact his hearts are breaking all over again. 'You know where we haven't been in a while? The Mestophelix Galaxy –'

There's no distracting Donna, of course. Even before she had a Time Lord's focus, she was relentless.

'None of that, Spaceman! You know as well as I do there's no real reason to live Rose or himbehind.'

'He committed genocide!'

'So have you! For the same reason! And what about Rose, hm? You're cutting her off from her home universe - you know how dangerous that could be - !'

'The dimensional retroclosure will iron out any inconsistencies in both universal timelines.'

'Yeah, I know that, but that doesn't mean –'

'And what would you have me do?' he snarls, whirling away from the controls on the console and glaring over at her. 'Bring her and leave him? Separate Rose from her family and the life she's built? Or bring them both? Watch them both live out their happy lives? Or are you envisioning some sort of time share before I watch them both die?!'

'Oi! Don't you take that tone with me,' Donna barks back, not cowed by him in the least. 'I know exactly what you're thinking – every thought – cos it's in my head too. And I get your reasons, I just think they're utter bollocks.'

'Donna –'

'No! You had the love of your lives back in your arms! And you've been planning to put her back here from the minute you saw her again, haven't you? Even if you didn't split yourself in two on accident! All for some misguided martyr ploy to keep her safe! Or not having to watch her wither and die, whatever,' she finishes, tone derisive. 'You're just being a coward! And you didn't even give her a choice!'

He opens his mouth to protest. 'Of course I gave her a –'

'Choosing between two of you isn't a choice, and you know it! And when she calms down enough to figure that out, it won't matter that she's with the other you, she's going to hate for you for it.'

'Maybe that's for the best,' the Doctor murmurs, more to himself than Donna.

She hears it, though, because her voice goes all shrill and she demands, 'How could that ever be best?'

There are entire treatises on the subject that she would understand if she felt like digging a bit deeper into her new brain. Not that he would recommend that. The exact opposite, actually. He knows he doesn't have much time with Donna as it is, and spending that time arguing is the last thing he wants to do.

'Donna, can we just…not?' he finally says, the energy going out of him.

She must sense something in his tone, because she sighs.

'Fine. I'll let it go,' she says, but her tone conveys the unspoken for now.

If thing were different, he would be worried about that tone. He would fully expect a long rant on the subject, possibly a slap and the very definite not-end to the conversation. Because two Time Lords with access to Time Lord technology could definitely figure out how to traverse parallel worlds now, and with Donna's forceful nature…

Time to run, he thinks, as Donna takes her place on the other side of the TARDIS console and he begins to dematerialization sequence.

Within seconds the ship is moving, but minus the rocky ride that usually characterizes his travels. Without the fate of reality hanging in the balance, their movements are more controlled and graceful, and it's a smoother trip than he can remember in a long time.

The Doctor wants to cry in frustration at the absolute joy he feels, piloting his magnificent ship with someone who knows what they're doing. Someone so in sync with his thoughts as to anticipate the next directions without having to give it.

They bring the TARDIS into the Vortex, letting her idle for a little bit after the strain of towing twenty-seven planets. The Doctor moves away from the console, meandering toward the door that no longer has Rose Tyler and his counterpart on the other side, feeling a familiar heaviness in him.

Leaning against one of the coral struts, he glances back at where Donna is toggling the view screen on the console. He can feel the effort she is putting in to not revisiting the subject – already the process has started, if she can't keep her mental shields up, and he swallows.

'I thought we could try the planet Felspoon,' she announces, clasping her hands behind her back, and he finds himself nodding slowly. 'Just cos. What a good name, Felspoon. Apparently it's got mountains that sway in the breeze. Mountains that move. Can you imagine?'

She twists a dial.

'And how do you know that?' he asks, careful to keep his tone neutral.

'Because it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine.'

'And how does that feel?'

'Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene! Great big universe, packed into my brain. You know, you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just tried hotbinding the fragment links and superseding the binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary – binary –'

His hearts clench and he makes a move toward her, but she takes a deep gulp of air.

'I'm fine!' she insists, looking away. 'Nah, never mind Felspoon. You know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin. I bet he's great. Charlie Chaplin. Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin? Shall we? Charlie Chaplin?' She picks up the phone on the console, hangs it up again. 'Charlie Chester. Charlie Brown. No, he's fiction – Friction – fiction – fixing – mixing – Rickston – Brixton –' She gasps again and clutches the console, bent over with her shoulders heaving. 'Oh my God.

'Do you know what's happening?' he asks. It takes everything he is to keep himself sounding detached, to not go to pieces in front of her the way he desperately wants to.

Donna straightens, and says in a defeated voice, 'Yeah.'

'There's never been a human Time Lord metacrisis before now. And you know why.'

'Because there can't be,' she replies, devastated.

She won't look at him, instead fiddling with a lever on the TARDIS. He knows she's just trying to hold herself up in the wake of what they both know is about to happen. 'I want to stay.'

'Look at me –' The Doctor leans closer, trying to catch her eye, but she is resolute in her avoidance. 'Donna, look at me.'

She finally does, her shoulders slumping the slightest bit. 'I was gonna be with you. Forever.'

'I know.'

'The rest of my life,' she almost whispers. 'Travelling, in the TARDIS. The Doctor-Donna.'

There's nothing he can say to this, because they both know that no one gets to be with him forever. Not his friends, not his family, not –

He cuts that thought off before it can take root.

And even worse than that knowledge, is the knowledge that Donna's one of the unlucky few who won't even get to remember it all.

She gasps and staggers, knowing what he's thinking. Whether it's the telepathy or having reasoned out the conclusion herself, he's not entirely sure.

'No! Oh my God!' she gasps, taking a shaky step away from him even as he steadies. 'I can't go back! Don't make me go back! Doctor, please, please don't make me go back!'

Every word feels like a brand, but he forces himself to reign in what he's feeling. If it spills over now, the emotional bleed-through might render her braindead.

Possibly a mercy compared to what he's about to do.

'Donna – oh, Donna Noble, I am so sorry,' he tells her, trying to ignore the way she's looking at him like he can fix all this. They always look at him like that, but he thinks today that look might actually kill him. 'But we had the best of times.'

'No…'

'The best,' he insists as tears run down her cheeks. He wants her to know that in her heart even if she won't know it in her head. 'Goodbye.'

He raises his hands to her temples, already reaching into her mind.

'No, no, no – please! Please, no – no!'

Flashes of her life sizzle through both their minds as he reaches for her memories, a fluid montage of their best and worst moments together. The faces of people they've saved and lost, and planets that remain in the sky because of her. He promises her that he will guard those experienced, keep them safe and cherish them for both of them.

But when he goes to remove them, he finds that they stubbornly remain there. The metacrisis ensured that even as they are burning her up from the inside, her thoughts and memories retain the durability of a Time Lady's. The Doctor won't be able to remove them permanently, take them into himself to protect them as he had intended.

He finds himself selfishly relieved at that. He won't have to completely murder his friend after all.

Just irrevocably cripple her.

And so he gathers the memories and thoughts and experiences all together, shaping and fitting them together, compressing them into a manageable proportions. As long as they aren't accessed, they will remain in this state. He packs them far away in her subconscious mind, into a part of her brain that humans don't have access to – and won't, for millennia yet.

Long after Donna Noble is dead and gone.

He buries it all beneath layers and layers of inconsequential thoughts and last minute things to check, building up as many protections as he dares with her already injured psyche. It's still significant, for a human brain, and her mind might as well be wiped for all the wards he creates.

As the last one slips in to place, Donna manages a last, desperate, 'No!' and then goes limp.

He catches her as she falls forward, and for a moment just holds her.

'I'm sorry,' he whispers, brushing her hair back from her face. 'I'm so, so sorry.'

It's harder than it should be, lifting her up and settling her on the jump seat so that he can key in the new coordinates.

The TARDIS creaks and rumbles, almost in protest, but they make it back to London without incident. She might not like it, but she knows the sooner they get Donna off the ship and out of his life, the safer she will be.

It's pouring rain when he opens the door, and he shifts Donna's face into his chest to keep the water off. It wouldn't do for her to wake just yet.

They've landed across the road from the Nobles' home, and it should be nothing for him to cross the street to bring her there. The Doctor's knees give out, though, a psychosomatic response to the turmoil in his head, and they crumble in a heap outside the front door.

He's close enough to knock, though, and within seconds the door is wrenched open and Wilf is staring down, his excitement turning to dread in an instant.

'Help me,' the Doctor commands.

'Donna?' her grandfather murmurs. 'Donna?'

Between the two of them they get her up the stairs and onto her bed. She shows no sign of waking, but the Doctor knows it won't be long before she does. He needs to leave.

But he owes her family an explanation. He's broken apart countless families without explanation, left parents wondering where their child was because it wasn't important enough to him to give them answers.

He will not do that to his best friend's family.

Thunder rolls overhead as he sits Donna's mother and grandfather down to tell them the terrible news.

'She took my mind into her own head,' he finishes after giving them a quick version of everything that happened in the Medusa Cascade. 'But that's a Time Lord consciousness. All that knowledge, it was killing her.'

'But she'll get better now?' Wilf asks, barely containing the tremble in his voice.

'I had to wipe her mind completely. Every trace of me, or the TARDIS. Anything we did together, anywhere we went, had to go.'

'All those wonderful things she did…'

'I know…but that version of Donna is dead,' he declares, and the finality of those words visibly pains them. He leans forward, lowering his voice. 'Because if she remembers, just for a second, she'll burn up. You can never tell her. You can't mention me or any of it for the rest of her life.'

'But the whole world's talking about it!' Sylvia protests as Wilf shakes his head in denial. 'We travelled across space!'

'It'll just be a story. One of those Donna Noble stories, where she missed it all again.'

'But she was better with you!' Wilf objects, tears in his eyes.

The Doctor's hearts clench again, and a part of him wants to deny that. No one is better with him.

Sylvia Noble seems to agree. 'Don't say that!'

'No, she was!' Wilf isn't having it. He's never been one to mince words or pander to anyone's sensibilities. Just like Donna.

The Doctor thinks he's going to miss that the most.

'I just want you to know,' he tells them, 'there are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of her. That there are people living in the light, and singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand million lightyears away. They will never forget her, while she can never remember. And for one moment, one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe.'

'She still is,' Sylvia informs him, iron in her words. 'She's my daughter.'

'Then maybe you should tell her that once in a while –'

There's a slam of the door, and Donna barges in, furious. 'I was asleep! On my bed, in my clothes like a flippin' kid, what'd you let me do that for?!' She barely offers the Doctor a glance, and he shifts to keep from making eye contact. 'Don't mind me. Donna.'

He purses his lips and stands, offering her a hand, which she takes without looking at him. 'John smith.'

'Mister Smith was just leaving,' Sylvia remarks, but Donna isn't listening. She's off in her own little world, the insular existence he remembers from their first encounter.

'My phone's gone mad,' she informs them, as if that's the best news she's heard all day. 'Thirty-two texts. Veena's gone barmy, she's sayin' planets in the sky! What have I missed now?' She turns and disappears back into the hall without a backwards glance. 'Nice to meet you.'

Even though he was expecting it, the complete non-recognition feels like a knife to the gut. He swallows, setting his jaw to keep from saying anything, to keep from calling out to her to come back.

It's done, it can't be changed, move on.

'As I said,' Sylvia says firmly, the icy intensity of a mother protecting her child filling every syllable, 'I think you should go.'

He knows she's right, but he can't seem to find the energy to take the first step. The one that will take him out of the sitting room and to the front door, back to the TARDIS and out of Donna's life.

He half expects Wilf to insist he stay, to beg him for another solution to the problem, but the old man is too stunned to try.

It's this that finally prompts him to move, and he makes his way out of the sitting room. His feet feel like they're made of lead, and in so many ways this is harder than leaving Rose behind. Rose Tyler will be brilliant no matter what happens, and she'll always know it. She'll always remember their adventures and now that she has her own version of him that can make him happy…well, those two get the easy life, don't they?

But this, this loss is horrible. A strong, amazing, brilliant woman died today, all because she had the rotten luck of knowing him.

The Doctor's double might be a genocide, but the Doctor's complicity in Donna Noble's demise is by far the greater sin.

He can't help stopping into the kitchen one last time before he leaves.

Donna is there, puttering around the kitchen on her mobile.

'…how thick do you think I am? Planets! Tell you what that was, dumbo, that's those two-for-one lagers you gets down the offy because you fancy that little man in there with the goatee.' She closes the refrigerator door. 'Ha-ha! Yes, you do! I've seen you!'

'Donna?' he tries, telling himself he's just making sure. He indicates the door. 'I was just going.

'Yeah, see you,' she replies, barely paying attention. 'I tell you what, though, you're wasting your time with that one, because Susie Mayor, she went on that dating site, and she saw him. No, no, no, no! Listen, listen, this is important!' Her voice follows him as he leaves the house. Susie Mayor wouldn't lie! Not unless it was about calories…'

Wilf is waiting for him on the landing, still looking numb. Sylvia hasn't even bothered, and he can hardly blame her for it. She didn't like him to begin with, and now he's given her extra reason to hate him.

It's still raining as Wilf lets him out of the house, and he glances up the sky. He can't help think the weather is appropriate.

'Ah – you'll have quite a bit of this,' he remarks mildly. 'Atmospheric disturbance.' He inhales. 'Still, it'll pass. Everything does.' He glances back at the old man. 'Bye then, Wilfred.'

Donna's grandfather nods, his mouth parting like he wants to say something but can't. He only manages it after the Doctor gets a few paces away. 'Oh, Doctor?'

He turns.

'What about you now?' Wilf wants to know. 'Who've you got? I mean…all those friends of yours.'

'They've all got someone else,' the Doctor answers, and he's amazed at how level he manages to keep his voice. 'Still. That's fine. I'm fine.'

It's never been a bigger lie than right now.

'I'll watch out for you, sir.'

There's a brief moment of panic, and the Doctor insists, 'You can't ever tell her –'

'No, no!' Wilf rushes to assure him. 'But every night, Doctor, when it gets darks, and the stars come out, I'll look up on her behalf. I'll look up at the sky, and think of you.'

He's glad for the rain now, because that way Wilf won't notice the tears streaking down his cheeks.

'Thank you,' he manages, and turns to plod back to the TARDIS.

He tries to tell himself that Donna will be brilliant again without him, that she just needs one spark to show her that and he would be arrogant to think he's the only one who can give that to her.

The TARDIS is quiet when he enters, the silence ringing of wordless shock. So much has happened today, it will take them both a while to process it.

He wanders around the console, distractedly removing his sodden jacket as memories of the day finally break the shield he's been putting up against them. Hours ago, this place was filled with laughter and excitement and friendship. He was surrounded by people he loved and who loved him, and even in the direst moment, he was happy.

It might as well be another lifetime for how much has changed in that time.

You're cozy little world can be rewritten just like that, he hears his own voice reminding him. All Northern and with a superiority-complex, and he's pretty sure that version of him wouldn't have let any of this happen.

Once more, he is the last Time Lord in the universe, with no one but the last TARDIS to see him lose his composure. Having once more abandoned his friends, the woman he loves and his other self – selves – he finally lets his control over his emotions slip. The guilt, the hopelessness, the devastation – it all washes over him, and not for the first time does he want nothing more than to forget it all.

Rose and his double might have it better than Donna, but right now, the Doctor wishes he could have traded with her. Forgetting everything seems a blessing compared to have to remember it all.

He can still feel the whimper of her consciousness where it lies dormant, where he will feel it until the day she dies. Their timelines will always be synced now, no matter where he is in the universe. He knows he will have to content himself with that and tries to tell himself it's better than nothing.

More depressing thoughts.

He gets up and moves around the console room, as if that will help him outrun them, throws open the door of the TARDIS to stare out into the cosmos. Looking for a clue where to go next.

The constellation Lupus shines reproachfully at him. The Wolf.

'None of that,' he lectures dully. 'She's gone – message over, I'm not listening to it anymore.'

He slams the door and whirls about, wiggles his fingers, balances on the balls of his feet, tries to think of anything but what's happened today and can't. Which is rubbish, because right now it's all he wants to do.

He wishes he hadn't used the chameleon arch on the Family. Usually that would be because the decision led to more death and destruction than if he'd just dealt with them right away. Right now, he would escape into a life where he can't remember in a heartsbeat.

Could build another one, he thinks. It would take a while, and considering the lack of necessary parts compatible with Gallifreyan technology, it would be dangerous.

But it would be something to do.

He's already taken a few steps in the direction of the workshop when he feels it.

A faint, very delicate tickle at the back of his mind.

Not coming from Donna.

He frowns, concentrating on it and feels the bottom drop out of his stomachs when he realises: he can still feel the other Doctor across the Void.

Muted and flat, but unquestionably present.

The sensation also shows no sign of weakening or going away, either.

It is instinct to reach out and touch that consciousness. This could be a gift, a way to check up on what's going on with Rose and his double, for days like this when he needs comfort. When he needs to know all is well.

Doubt surges up just as quickly.

Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

After everything else he's put himself through today, this is like a lifeline that he wants nothing more than to cling to. But it's selfish, isn't it? Him getting to see their lives play out, but them not having the same privilege.

What if maintaining the link creates resentment between them? Donna said something about Rose hating him, and he pretended like it was something he could survive, but if he's honest he doesn't think he could. At least if she hates him now, he'll never know and can pretend for the rest of his life.

Before he can truly connect to the Other, his better judgement delivers the coup de grace.

How is he going to feel decades from now when he reaches out to him and no one answers? Or if there is an answer, but one that tells him Rose has died horribly or wasted away from old age? The other world moves faster, after all.

For the first time in all of it he considers the feelings of his other self. The Other won't want to be attached to him forever. He would likely feel the Doctor was checking up on him, never truly letting him be and always taunting him with the prospect of crossing the Void to take his happiness away.

It's what the Doctor would think if he had been the one left behind.

And so at the last second, he reins himself in and blocks off the link.

It's still there, permanent, but he won't use it.

It's better this way, he tells himself. Cowardly or not, it's better.

If he maintained the link, it would only cause trouble for Rose and the other Doctor. They would never be free of him, never be able to heal.

He knows his own mind, and he knows how Rose Tyler thinks. She would try to rationalise a way to use the link to return to this universe. And the Other is probably just as helpless in the face of her wishes as the Doctor is, so the idiot would try.

When has the end of the universe ever stopped him when it came to making Rose Tyler happy?

He knows if it was him trapped with her, and she wanted to come back, he would kill himself trying to help her.

No, it's best to make a clean break, he decides. On both sides.

He doesn't want to be stuck thinking of them forever either; he doesn't have the strength anymore. And so he pushes the link to the back of his mind, far away – down into the deepest recesses of himself where Susan is buries – and resolves to ignore it.

After all, he's had centuries of practice ignoring the hard bits. Maybe by the time they come back to haunt him, enough time will have passed that it doesn't hurt anymore.

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